Eyewitness to War - Volume III: US Army Advisors in Afghanistan

Eyewitness to War Oral History Series: US Army Advisors in Afghanistan is the third publication by the Combat Studies Institute that makes exclusive use of oral history. This volume is a product of interviews obtained by the CSI Operational Leadership Experience (OLE) project and our Contemporary Operations Study Team (COST). The interviews used in this volume range from a senior officer who conceptualized the idea for Task Force Phoenix, the Coalition Joint Task Force that execute a broad-based training, mentoring, and assistance program aimed at improving the Afghan National Army's (ANA) ability to field mission-ready operational commands, to embedded transition team members assigned to coach, teach and mentor their ANA counterparts. The interviews are in their own words; they provide frank commentary to a range of topics including pre-deployment training, logistics support, poppy eradication (and some of the corruption they encountered associated with that task) and integration of Special Forces with conventional infantry on operations.